Andrew Mitchell should not have quit over 'seven seconds' of anger, David Cameron thinks

David Cameron believes Andrew Mitchell should not have quit over his “seven
seconds of unacceptable but very human exasperation”, a Cabinet minister has
said.

Alll along Andrew Mitchell has been ambivalent about what actually happened at the Downing Street gates. He apologised to the officers involved, yet maintains that he did not use the toxic words “pleb” or “moron”. Photo: Yui Mok/PA

Education secretary Michael Gove said the Prime Minister believes that Mr Mitchell could have “toughed out” the row over “plebgate”.

Mr Mitchell resigned as Government chief whip on Friday night, a month to the day after he allegedly called Downing Street police officers “f****** plebs” because they refused to let him leave the street by the main gates on his bicycle.

Speaking on Murnghan on Sky News, Mr Gove - a key ally of Mr Cameron - disclosed Mr Cameron thought that Mr Mitchell could have “toughed” out the row over “plebgate”.

Mr Gove said: “David Cameron wanted to keep Andrew, I wanted Andrew to stay because I don’t believe and the Prime Minister doesn’t believe that 30 years of public service should be effaced at a stroke by seven seconds of unacceptable but very human exasperation.

“Andrew came to that decision because he wanted to put the interests of the party collectively ahead of his own.

"Making that judgement he has confirmed what I have always thought of him that he is a decent guy who had one moment when he let his temper get the better of him."

The Prime Minister “felt that he could continue to a job as chief whip and bring to the party some of the intelligence and skill he employed in a different ministerial role”, he said.

Mr Gove said it was not inevitable that Mr Gove had to quit because “throughout history there have been ministers who it was assumed would have to go but toughed it out in office and then went on to deliver worthwhile reforms”

Mr Mitchell eventually quit he said after “reflecting on the delicate and nuanced role that the chief whip plays” and realising that he could not do his job”.

Mr Gove played down the row and said that it was part of the “froth of political life and not central to [people’s] concerns and how they live their lives”.

Home Secretary Theresa May refused to say whether she had been behind efforts to persuade Mr Mitchell to resign.

Asked about the claims, she told BBC1’s Sunday Politics: “I’m not going to talk about private conversations. Andrew has resigned. I think that is an end to the issue."

She also played down the significance of recent headlines, insisting the Government was doing well on issues that mattered to voters. For voters what matters is what the Government actually delivers for people.”

The news came as Lord Tebbit, a former Cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher, described Mr Cameron’s administration as “a dog a coalition Government”.

Writing in The Observer, Lord Tebbit said: “This dog of a coalition government has let itself be given a bad name and now anybody can beat it.

“It has let itself be called a government of unfeeling toffs. Past governments have had far more real Tory toffs: prime ministers Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Macmillan, or even in Thatcher's day, Whitelaw, Soames, Hailsham, Carrington, Gowrie, Joseph, Avon, Trenchard and plenty more, without incurring similar abuse.”

After weeks of criticism and speculation over his future, Mr Mitchell told Mr Cameron on Friday night it was not fair to put his colleagues and family through such “damaging” stories any longer.

He insisted in a letter to the Prime Minister that he had not referred to an officer on the gate in Downing Street as either a “pleb” or a “moron” but acknowledged delivering, after being told he could not ride his bike through the main gates, the parting line: “I thought you guys were supposed to f****** help us.”

He was swiftly replaced as chief whip by Sir George Young, an old Etonian MP who lost his job in the reshuffle as leader of the House of Commons in the reshuffle.